


spring will come after winter.

by LIGHTSJOON



Category: ONF (Band)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Brief mentions of blood and violence, Character Death, Dialogue Heavy, Established Relationship, First Love, Grief/Mourning, How Do I Tag, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I wrote this to I think I love you, Love, Love Confessions, Love and sacrifice, Love/Hate, M/M, Minor Character Death, Moving On, Post-Relationship, Trauma, dude poor Hyojin, wjc prompt night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29751624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LIGHTSJOON/pseuds/LIGHTSJOON
Summary: changyoon tries to help hyojin move on from a love that has nowhere else to go.;inspired by ONF’s ITILU
Relationships: Kim Hyojin/Lee Changyoon | E-Tion, Kim Hyojin/Lee Seungjun | J-Us
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	spring will come after winter.

**Author's Note:**

> cw// mentions of weapons, blood 
> 
> tw // anxiety/panic attacks
> 
> This is a bit of a darker work, one I didn’t think would ever be inspired by ITILU. But here it is and I hope y’all enjoy.

“This feels like a dream, don’t you think, Hyo?”

Hyojin turned his head towards Changyoon as they lay side by side in the tall grass. They’d been doing this for as long as he could remember—coming to this field, laying out a blanket, and just allowing themselves to feel just as bare and open as the stars.

“What does?” 

Changyoon sighed with content. “Just...this. Being here, being together.” 

Hyojin couldn’t help but chuckle. “And is that something to celebrate?” 

“Of course it is…” 

Changyoon turned on his side to look at him, and sometimes they would just stay like that, endlessly staring until they found the answers they were supposedly looking for. Answers to questions that didn’t— _shouldn’t_ exist, but they willed the possibility into existence. Willed it to cater to their desires, desperately hoped it would fill the void of everything that was suddenly missing from their lives.

“We’re alive, aren’t we?” he continued, the whisper of his breath warm against his skin. “That in and of itself is enough to be grateful for.” 

The elder smiled weakly. A small triumph. “Yeah...yeah, of course.”

—

_“Oh my god,” Seungjun gasped. “Hyojin, please tell me you finished the English assignment.”_

_Hyojin eyed his friend with a deep suspicion, his eyebrow ticking up at the implied plea. “I may have. Is this your way of letting me know you didn’t do it and you need to copy off of me?”_

_Seungjun nearly spit his coffee across the table and onto his laptop. A strangled noise wretched from his throat as he scrambled for something to say. “I—_ no— _what makes you think that_ I _would forget to do an assignment?”_

_“I didn’t say you forgot,” he clarified. “I said that you didn’t do it.”_

_“Okay,_ but _what makes you think I wouldn’t have done it?!”_

_Hyojin rolled his eyes. “You never do the assignments, Jun. The only assignments I’ve only seen you do are the ones that are assigned for extra credit.”_

_“Those are still assignments—”_

_“Not the ones that matter.”_

_“Listen…” Seungjun chuckled. “An assignment is an assignment.”_

“Jun—”

_“Please help me out just this once.”_

_“And what do I get out of helping you?”_

_Seungjun’s shoulders slumped, hoping the answer would come easily. He should have known that Hyojin would try to pull something like this. He always did. It never seemed to fail._

_“I’ll give you endless kisses for a month.”_

_His fingers halted as they had danced across the keys of his own laptop, his eyes flickered up and across the table to where the blonde poured his desperate gaze into him. He’d never say no to that face, to those eyes that spoke to his soul as if they were purely meant for him. It were as if Seungjun had been designed to love him, had been given the gift of being able to read and speak the language of Hyojin’s essence._

_“Seungjun, you already do that…”_

_The latter groaned, “You’re being cruel today.”_

_A smile played at Hyojin’s lips, threatening to break his mostly determined facade. He stood slightly and leaned across the short distance of the uncomfortable small round table and let a kiss linger on Seungjun’s cheek._

_When he pulled back, mere inches away from his face, Hyojin allowed the ice to thaw. Paved the way for winter to fade into the grace of spring._

_And with a loving sigh he asked, “So, what’s your topic?”_

—

Changyoon dragged Hyojin down the street, along achingly familiar sidewalks, tirelessly heart wrenching memories, until they came across a park. The younger had been complaining and crying over his sudden desire to swing on a swing, calling him in the dead of the night to drag him out of the house so that he wouldn’t have to go alone.

“Okay, go swing on your swing,” Hyojin urged, unlooping his arm from Changyoon’s and ushering him forward. 

“Come with me…”

“I can’t—”

 _“Come on, Hyo!”_ Changyoon begged. “You didn’t come all of this way to just stand here and watch me.”

“That’s exactly why I came all of this way, actually.”

Changyoon shook his head. “I refuse to let that be so. Come on.”

And as much as Hyojin tried to resist, desperately tried to keep his feet firmly planted to the ground, the weight of Changyoon’s desire pulled him forward until he was stumbling in the tanbark. 

The feeling of the warmth of his blood rushing up into his ears made him feel like the worst was only yet to come. Changyoon practically forced him down onto the seat of the swing and began to push him lightly. Hyojin’s heart pounded fiercely against the dense bones of his ribcage, hammered against it violently, cried out for some sort of relief against the vivid aches and pains that lingered there. 

“Changyoon— _wait—pl–please—_ ”

“Hold on tight!”

And then Hyojin was soaring, his knuckles stark white as they gripped the chains of the swing as he swayed. 

_“Please…”_ the word caught in his voice as a whisper. “Please, _wait…”_

“Are you having fun?!” Changyoon shouted as Hyojin went flying past him. 

“Make it stop…” Hyojin pleaded, his voice in a panic. “Changyoon, please, make it stop!” 

As he came down close to the ground, Hyojin dug his heels into the bark, which was sent flying in all directions. He could hardly care if his landing was rough, Hyojin launched himself from the swing until his feet were securely on the ground.

And once the realization caught up with his memory, he ran. 

Continued to run...and run...and run. Until the memory of Seungjun’s lifeless body was a distant memory. 

—

_“Seungjun, be careful!” Hyojin called out. “How many times do I have to tell you that you shouldn’t run in the rain?!”_

_The blonde laughed fiercely as he turned to face him, walking backwards along the sidewalk. He stuck his tongue out and made a funny face before saying, “You’re my boyfriend, not my mom…”_

_“Well, you sure know how to make me worry like one.”_

_And just when Hyojin thought he’d finally caught up to him, Seungjun took a sharp turn into the community park, continuing to run until he was sprinting up the play structure that was far too small for him._

_“Here is your chance to prove to me that you are in fact my boyfriend—come play.”_

_“Lee Seungjun…” Hyojin scoffed. “It is_ pouring _rain. Now is not the time to—”_

_“Come on, Hyo...live a little.” Seungjun smiled with that dazzling smile, the very one that made his eyes crinkle with happiness, and whatever resentment that Hyojin had been fostering seemingly melted away in the same way ice would simply disappear in hot water._

_Hyojin reached the foot of the slide just in time for Seungjun to meet him there as he came down. And when he stood, Seungjun could barely get the elder’s name out of his mouth before Hyojin closed the gap between them._

_It felt cliche really, to say that the whole world seemed to fall away when their lips would meet, and Hyojin had come to despise the metaphor over time. Yet, whenever he was with Seungjun, he couldn’t speak a word against its existence. It wasn’t until Seungjun that he’d grown to believe that one person’s love for another could transcend everything they once thought they knew about the world._

_Seungjun wrapped his arms around Hyojin’s neck, pulling him in as close as he could possibly get him—until it just...stopped. All of Seungjun’s weight fell forward onto him as his knees buckled beneath them._

_“Jun?!” Hyojin cried. “Seungjun! What’s—”_

_A stark pain drove itself hard against Hyojin’s face, sending him sideways, away from Seungjun. Knuckles to skin. Something sharp._

_As quickly as it happened, it was over. Hyojin pushed himself up from the ground, the warmth of his blood dripping down his face, and he’d only been given a fraction of a second to recognize the figure that had sprinted around the corner. Out of sight._

_He’d been tempted to run after whoever had the gall to rob them in the middle of such a public place, until he realized that Seungjun hadn’t been able to pick himself up._

_“Seungjun?!” Hyojin yelled, panic swelling in his throat. “Seungjun, are you okay?!_

_Hyojin wrapped his arms around Seungjun, pulling his heavy body into his lap. “Hey! Jun, look at me. What’s going on?!”_

_The younger’s eyes fluttered open briefly, a strain so subtle lingered in his features._

_“Talk to me,” Hyojin demanded. “Are you okay?!”_

_Seungjun’s body shook violently as he labored over lifting a bloody hand to Hyojin’s face. “Just in case this is all a dream—”_

“No…” _Hyojin shook his head, grabbing ahold of the life that seemed to seep from him. “No, no. I’m right here. Just talk to me—”_

_With his free hand, Hyojin scrambled to reach for his phone but found his pockets empty. Stolen. Both of their phones had been stolen while they were down._

_“Hyo…”_

_“Don’t say anything.”_

_A painful sigh shuttered through Seungjun, his face paling as the rain matted his hair to his forehead. “I love you…”_

_“Stop—st—stop. Now.”_

_A weak smile reached his eyes. “Won’t you say it back, at least?”_

_Hyojin shook his head with disbelief. He was almost sure he was going to puncture his bottom lip with his teeth in his attempt to keep the tears at bay._

_“I love you,” Hyojin whispered as he pushed his forehead against his best friend’s. “I love you.”_

_“You—you are my star, Hyojin…” Seungjun stuttered through heavy breaths. “You have always been, always will be that dream I’ll continue to run towards.”_

—

Hyojin had told Changyoon about Seungjun.

About the gun. 

About the extreme blood loss that had claimed Seungjun’s life.

It was the very reason that Hyojin couldn’t bring himself to stare at the night sky for too long, was the very reason why Hyojin couldn’t bring himself to step foot into a park, and he could tell that Changyoon was trying.

Was trying to help Hyojin overcome the fears that had embedded themselves so deep, they were simply part of who he was now. 

Was trying to do anything and everything to break through the numbness that had morphed him into someone he didn’t even know. 

Grief did that to a person. Drove them into abysmal craters, into twilight, and endless sorrows.

“If I say I think I love you…” Changyoon started hesitantly as he shifted on the picnic blanket. “It might scare you away, may crack your already fragile conscience...so I won’t say it.”

Changyoon’s long brunette bangs dangled in his eyes, made him seem more closed off than he’d ever been in their lives. Almost as if he was undecided, unsure of himself and his choice, he reached across the space between them to move Hyojin’s hair away from his face and smiled. 

“Instead, I’ll say this—”

A long empty silence settled between them, and it were almost as if Hyojin could hear the gears turning in Changyoon’s mind as he struggled against what words to use and what to omit. 

Changyoon laid his palm flat against Hyojin’s cheek, his thumb stroking the smooth scarred skin. 

“Spring will come...winter will pass, and spring will come with a warmth that you surely deserve.”


End file.
